ThisKnowledge
Pack contains Indigenous Knowledge cases and other useful information
related to the Environment.
The indigenous knowledge pack is a tool that provides users with quick
access to synthesized information by countryor selected thematicarea.

Summary: The zai, a micro-catchment with a
diameter of 20 to 30 cm and a depth of 15 to 20 cm, is dug with a daba primarily
to increase water infiltration and to reduce erosion. The farmers maintain desirable
woody plants that have grown naturally in the zaï. The zai are fertilized with
animal dung. The seeds used are those that have been naturally pre-treated by
passing through the intestinal tracts of animals. The zaï forestier technique
addresses natural resource deterioration and desertification. This technique
has proven successful in reclaiming degraded land and in regenerating forest
resources.

Lesson: This practice shows how farmers develop
innovative approaches to deal with soil degradation and deforestation. It could
be used in agricultural extension and research activities

Burkina
Faso: An original agro-forestry technique for soil improvement

Summary: For several decades, an eighty-year
old Mossi farmer from Passoré has been using a natural reproduction method
for the acacia albida tree. This farmer has succeeded in getting his plot
«colonized» by acacia albida trees. To that effect, he uses a very simple
method consisting of cutting the plants roots so they will propagate.
These root-suckers grow and become adult trees within seven years. Then,
the farmer cuts the lateral roots of those trees and other root-suckers
appear.

Lesson: This agro-forestry technique is
efficient, but the process is slow. It could be improved and disseminated
with the assistance of development organizations.

Cameroon:
Forest
dwelling Baka have intimate knowledge of medicinal and other uses of forest
products

Summary: About 40,000 Baka live in the equatorial
rainforest of the Southeast region of Cameroon. The Baka possess extensive
knowledge of forest-based resources on which they rely solely for their
livelihood. They include a variety of wild tubers, fruits, leaves, animals,
fish and honey. In March 1998 we interviewed a group of Baka men and women
who had left the forest and settled in Dioula village in Southeast Cameroon,
to test their knowledge of forest resources. They are aware of numerous
types of trees with medicinal and other uses for their leaves, fruits,
wood, bark and roots. The Baka reputation as traditional healers is attributed
to their intimate knowledge of forest products. Their knowledge of forest
resources could be very useful to the drug and timber industries.

Lesson: This method of making cheese can
be integrated into the operations of mini dairies and cheese making factories.
As a source of additional income, cheese making can be useful to local
communities when there is a seasonal surplus of milk. This cheese is considered
a good source of protein.

Summary: The Kilum Mountain Forest, which
is host to some endemic bird and animal species, is one of the few surviving
mountain forests in West/Central Africa. Sixteen villages of the Oku chiefdom,
which lie adjacent to the forest, appropriate its resources for their
sustenance. Medicinal plants are harvested in the forest and exported
to Europe and the USA. Since settling in the area over a hundred years
ago the Oku people have managed the resources of the forest according
to rules crafted and implemented by a traditional institution called Kwifon.
Kwifon makes rules that govern access to the resources of the forest,
their appropriation and conservation. The chief communicates rules in
public announcements. Kwifon is based in the chief’s palace. It has a
security network through which it is informed about everything that happens
in the chiefdom. The people of Oku attribute its ability to detect those
who flout its orders and injunctions to omnipresent mystical powers.

Lesson: Indigenous NRM methods are effectively
conserving and regulating the use of natural forests through without publicly
imposed regulations.

Summary: East Africa, and especially Tanzania,
has one of the richest Flora in tropical Africa. Lowlands, highlands,
inland lakes and a variable climate produce a multitude of biotopes: (semi-)
deciduous or humid forests, Savannah and steppe, Miombo forests, all contribute
to that exceptional bio-diversity. Some of the species have considerable
economic value for the rural population. They are used for medicinal,
dietary or cultural, construction or artesanal purposes. Local communities
market some of these plants on local level. However, commercialization
beyond local communities takes place only in rare cases.

Lesson: Studying the various uses and commercial
value of underutilized plants could generate income for rural communities.

Summary: Since the first French occupation
in 1893, the authorities of the Republic of Guinea have been convinced that
forest patches are the last relics of an original forest which once fully covered
the landscape. Researchers adopted a different approach to understanding this
phenomenon by tracking land use history from historical sources, using history
to understand landscape rather than landscape to understand history. Historical
sources combined with detailed research into local land use knowledge and practice,
showed how forest islands found in savanna owed their existence to inhabitants
who let them grow around their settlements. Forest islands were not relics of
a landscape half empty of forests, but forest outposts in a landscape half full
of them. Evidence which scientists and policy makers had been taking to indicate
vegetation degradation actually indicated landscape enrichment by people. To
get to know more about changes in vegetation quality and what it had meant for
the local inhabitants' livelihoods, researchers relied on the oral testimony
of elderly men and women. It was in relating how their ancestors had arrived
and founded settlements, a common genre of village oral history, that elders
often made reference to the planting of foundational cotton trees and the establishment
of vegetation-based fortification. It was through discussion of settlement history
and patterns with villagers that researchers came to understand other central
aspects of landscape development: how habitation and home gardening created
super-fertile soils with woody vegetation, for instance; and how in some places,
the multiplication of closely-spaced villages and forest islands served to exclude
fire and initiate the conversion of intervening savannas to forest.

Lesson: Understanding environmental phenomenon
often requires to be aware of indigenous knowledge in the matter.

Summary: There are various indigenous ways
of protecting water sources in central and eastern parts of Zim-babwe
and western Mozambique. One of them is to prohibit members of a community
to indis-criminately use their household utensils to fetch water from
a source. It is not allowed to use pots, cups, or buckets from the users’
homes. Rather, members of the community use a special gourd (mukombe)
which is permanently kept at the spring for only this purpose. Mukombe
has a very long handle, which safely prevents the hands or fingers (of
the person fetching water) from dipping into the spring, thus avoiding
a potential contamination hazard. Taboos and customs enforce compliance.

Lesson: Ownership of water and sanitation
programs may increase if project planners acknowledge and appreciate existing
customs that work in favor of sustainable use and maintenance of such
facilities.

Summary: A 1984 Canadian International Development
Agency (CIDA) "deep tube well project", in the Touareg area of Niger
had to be reconsidered at the request of the Touareg herders, after the sinking
of a deep tube well. Indeed, the new water points were attracting the herds,
overgrazing the land and consequently increasing the desertification process.
It was found out that the Touareg approach in distributing their shallow water
points in wider areas was the right approach.

Lesson: The Touareg approach of distribution
of shallow water points in wider areas is adapted to the local arid environment.

Summary: Flora and fauna of the Natural Reserve
of Popenguine, a shelter along the migratory route of numerous birds that follow
the Atlantic coast of West Africa, had been severely damaged by the ef-fects
of drought, increased grazing, and firewood harvest. To reclaim the reserve
a group of women created the Association of Women of Popenguine for the Protection
of the Environment. The asso-ciation raised green firebreaks around the entire
perimeter, replanted native species furnished by a nursery established at the
same time, and trained young volunteers from neighboring urban areas in nature
conservation who eventually performed much of the physical labor. The women
not only succeeded in re-stimulating local biodiversity and restoring the natural
vegetation of the area but their efforts also apparently contributed materially
to the reappearance of animal species not seen in those parts for years: porcupines,
mongoose, pata, jackals, civet cats, etc. During the following eight years,
the RFPPN used first its own resources and then additional ones provided by
donor organizations. The restoration of the reserve's ecology attracts the sort
of tourist activity that would genuinely benefit the local population, as opposed
to earlier tourist traffic.

Lesson: Taking ownership of natural resources
through the local community helps to preserve indigenous bio-diversity and provides
additional income.

Summary: The Maasai and Barabaig learn names
of the animals and plants, their behavioral patterns and eco-logical factors
under which they flourish. They acquire knowledge of the phenology of
plants, edaphic and topographical factors that influence their distribution/location
are described. They keep inventory of species and records of those, which
disappear. They assign names to new plants and animals. The taxonomy reflects
the use of plants for medicinal, social, economic or cultural useful-ness
or other determining characteristics, as in the case of poisonous plants.
Sometimes biological or ecological features of the species are reflected
in the names. This taxonomy of important species is then incorporated
into cultural/ religious beliefs, taboos, legends or myths.

Lesson: A taxonomy that is based on utilization
of species can help in the determining conservation requirements.

Tanzania:
Maasai
pastoralism is a form of sustainable land use in a fragile environment.

Summary: The Maasai have roamed the East
African rangeland for more than two millennia. Husbandry techniques, environmental
observation, land use as well as transhumance patterns are reflected in
the culture of the Maasai. Labor division according to gender and age,
music, legends, language, rituals, decision making and interaction with
neighboring communities are interwoven with the requirements of their
primary economic activity – cattle keeping. Despite of constant external
pressures (slave trade, colonialism, villagization following Tanzania’s
independence and "Westernization") the Maasai have preserved
a conspicuously different day-to-day culture. This culture has assisted
them to sustain their livelihoods. However, as population grows in Tanzania
and Kenya various pressures may eventually endanger their style of life:
expansion of cultivated land, requirements of wild life preservation,
cultural pressures and modernization. Time will show whether the Maassai’s
distinct culture will have endowed them with the flexibility and adaptability
to cope with the new conditions without losing their identity.

Lesson: The Pastoral Maasai culture is
at a crossroad to succumb to or survive modern cultural influences.

Summary: Pastoralist Maasai practice everyday
monitoring of their resource base to determine the trend of range condition
and to detect early signs of deterioration. To ensure reliability of evaluation
they have developed various sampling and surveying techniques. They observe
forage types, quality, quantity and condition as used by livestock and
wildlife. Common indicators used are: daily milk yield, animal coat texture
and color, consistence of cow and wildlife dung, and the extend of bush
encroachment. None of these indicators is used in isolation, rather a
combination of all of them provides the experienced pastoralist with early
indications of the condition of the range land and its likely changes.
Based on the observations, the herders decide how to manage the situation
or to apply coping strategies in case of an impending drought.

Lesson: Pastoral indicators in rangeland
monitoring can be used as part of early warning systems not only for the
range land but also for food security.

Summary: Water scarcity in the arid and semi-arid
regions of Africa poses a grave threat to the well-being of rural people. The
conventional approach to this problem has been to emphasize northern technologies
over indigenous forms of water management, without seriously considering the
potential benefits of the latter, which have evolved with the local environment
and are specifically adapted to local conditions. IDRC (International Development
Research Centre), a public corporation created by the Canadian government to
help communities in the developing world find solutions to social, economic,
and environmental problems through research, has designed a project to address
this oversight by supporting an in-depth study of the efficacy of traditional
methods of water management, and promoting, as appropriate, their continuance
or revival. This project includes 3 pilot projects located in Djibouti, Egypt
and Tanzania. The work carried out by local NGOs, and coordinated by the International
Secretariat for Water (ISW), will seek to document, evaluate and improve upon
traditional and contemporary water management schemes, and disseminate the value-added
traditional systems both locally and to other regions. Knowledge related to
traditional water management will be elicited through participatory techniques
such as interviews and meetings with local experts, as well as literature reviews.
Workshops will be organized to bring together local innovators and outside experts
to investigate promising technologies, and the results will be disseminated
through seminars and meetings with local communities. Lesson: The involving
of indigenous people, and there knowledge of local conditions and techniques,
can be used to protect dwindling resources.

Summary: To
fell trees at random is a taboo in the Maasai culture. Only a ritual of
prayers prior to cutting a tree as a sign of love/intimacy with the tree
would avoid the implications of violating the taboo. The ritual would
not be performed unless a dire need was established in advance. Trees
being rare in the steppe ecology are not only providers of tools, building
material, shade, fodder, and medici-nal use, they are also recognized
in their association with other plant species and interaction with the
environment. They serve as indicators of water sources, cattle routes,
aptitude of physical con-ditions, and as hosts of favorable fauna. Over
years the Maasai have learned – and integrated this experience in rituals
- how to judiciously use their natural resources by preserving their environ-ments.

Summary: Development workers often dismisses
beliefs and social behavior as superstitions and overlook their intrinsic
values and functions. In many cases, the superstitions (e.g. a taboo)
are not meant to convey ‘scientific’ facts but to shape thinking, and
to control behavior. Taboos are ‘social’ rules engrained through the socialization
process. Fear is meant to develop owing to the belief that vio-lation
causes infliction of punishment. Taboos "regulating" the extraction
medicine from plants have the function of preserving medicinal species.
For instance, the bark of a tree for use as medi-cine should be removed
from the sides facing the East and West of the tree only. Extracts from
other sides of the tree are believed to be ineffective because of braking
this rule. The tree survives the extraction and is thus managed in a sustainable
fashion.

Lesson: Communities could consider developing
new taboos for the management of natural resources that have become scarce.

Summary: African
traditional customs and religious belief systems provide ways of environmental
conserva-tion by reserving vast areas for natural growth and activity.
Marambatemwa (literally “places that resist cutting”) are ecological reserves
whose boundaries are defined by the spirit mediums of the land. In addition,
the manner of conduct of individuals who enter them are set by these spirits
The rules usually restrict human disturbance of the natural processes
in these areas. Even hunted ani-mals when dashing into these zones are
considered to have taken refuge and are protected by the ancestral spirits
of the land. Fruits are to be eaten on site and not to be carried home
for they need to feed other animals there. No trees are cut. It is not
even allowed to comment on apparently odd structures of natural objects.
These rules are enforced with punishments against perpetrators by ancestral
spirits of the land. Punishments include getting lost and failing to go
back home, or being attacked by wild animals.

Lesson: Ecological
zones which are preserved in this way are often better maintained than
game reserves administered through statutory law and bureaucratic procedures.

Zimbabwe: Local school leavers monitor effluents from mining activities.

Summary: In
communities surrounding the Cap Mine in Zimbabwe, local researchers
have experimented suc-cessfully with schemes involving young school
leavers as water quality monitors tasked with as-sisting community
residents in tracking seepage and direct effluent discharge into
waterways af-fected by mining activities. Farm populations demonstrated
a great interest in gaining better under-standing of the effect
of mining activities on local reservoirs and water supplies and
the resulting study had a marked impact on improving supervision
of environmental impacts of the industry.

Lesson: Involving
school leavers in environmental monitoring is cost effective and
creates a local pressure group to influence private and public action.
Also, the youth begin to understand their local environment.

The Trans-Frontier
Conservation Areas (TFCA) project is a Bank supported initiative to promote
natural resource management in southern Africa. The goal of this project
is to assist the government to create enabling policies, activities and
institutional framework for rehabilitating, conserving and managing its
unique biodiversity and natural resource endowments in three transfrontier
conservation areas. The project will contribute to poverty reduction by
assisting local communities inside and around the conservation areas, through
capacity building. Land and natural resource security measures and small
scale conservation and development activities.

Lake Malawi/Nyassa Environmental Management Project

The objective of the lake Malawi/Nyassa environmental project is to contribute
to country’s efforts to improve the economic livelihood of stakeholder
communities living in the shore and catchment of the lake. This project
is expected to demonstrate practical self-sustaining environmental management,
while simultaneously building capacity of local institutions for ecosystem
management. This includes: (1) optimizing the benefits of the lake to
riparian communities from fisheries; (2) improving management of soils,
forests, wetlands and other resources within the basin to generate food,
employment and income; and (3) sustaining the ecosystem from which these
benefits arise. A pilot study is underway to garner baseline data and
identify strategic contribution of local communities’ indigenous knowledge,
experiences and practices in managing the lake Malawi/Nyassa ecosystem
for the preparation of the first phase of this environmental project.

Local communities partner with
government to stop illegal deforestation

In 1993, illegal felling of timber trees on farms soared due to the opening
of a new roundlogs market in the Far East. The Forestry Department responded
by setting up a Working Group comprised of community chiefs, farmers,
foresters, and timbermen (as representatives of the public and private
sectors, and of the local communities) to analyze the situation and devise
a new system to regulate timber harvesting on farms. A radical new set
of "Interim Measures", based on new rules for timber felling,
were formulated to regulate timber production. This enabled the Forestry
Department, with the help of farmers, to monitor the movement of logs
from stump to port. The results: illegal logging has been almost totally stopped; farmers
and landowning communities are now able to rightfully collect token fees
and compensation payments at time of felling; the timber industry is performing
better as the legal timber operators have gained a measure of job security,
and log prices have increased; the resource base has been protected as
timber production fell to levels considered to be sustainable; Government
revenue collection from timber royalties quadrupled. Full report: Full Text Document.

Cape Peninsula Biodiversity
Conservation Project

The objective of the
Cape Peninsula Biodiversity Conservation Project is to ensure rehabilitation
and sustainable protection of the globally significant flora and related
fauna of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa including surrounding marine
ecosystems. To achieve this objective, the project will help establish
and strengthen initial management of a new Cape Peninsula National Park
by accelerated clearing of invasive alien species (acacia and pine trees)
and annual follow-up maintenance using labor-intensive techniques that
facilitate natural regeneration of indigenous species; environmental education;
enhanced fire management; improved tourist infrastructure and information;
capacity building among contract labor; a pilot-type marine protection
program; and a knowledge management component comprising monitoring and
evaluation and conservation activities for the entire Cape Floral Kingdom.

By
whom is the practice applied (e.g. Washambaa, local healers, women's group of
a given village etc.)?

5.
Source: Where
can we inquire further?

Primary
provider information (probably yourself or your institution)

Secondary
providers of information

Add
references to literature, web sites, names of individuals or organizations that
can corroborate the practice.

Include
addresses of primary and secondary providers of information.

6.
Descriptive headline of practice:

One
to two lines capturing the main features of a practice.

7.
Summary:

Describe
the main features of the practice and explain (not more than 200 words).

8.
Lessons:

Answer
three key questions related to efficacy and impact of the practice.

-
Why it is important for the local community?

-
Why might it be beneficial to other communities?

-
Why should development organizations learn more about this practice?

9.
Methods used to capture information:

How
was the practice identified, recorded and documented?

NB:
The IK database is an open, on-line resource for information on indigenous knowledge
practices. The database acts as a referral system and does not disclose the
technical details of practices or applications. Most practices in the database
have been reported elsewhere in publicly accessible information sources. As
is the principle of a referral database the provider of information could be
asked by users of the database to provide further information or pointers as
regards details of the practice. It is to the discretion of the provider of
information and the inquirer to negotiate the terms of the exchange of knowledge.
No information provided will be made public without the consent of the provider.